October 2016

In many ways Halloween for us starts way back in June – that’s around the time that Grandma Gail takes requests for the girls costumes. She then works over the summer to create whatever the girls have requested. And the results are always amazing! The girls absolutely love their costumes – it really is a fantastic gift and makes the girls feel so special. So thank you, Grandma Gail, for once again making our Halloween fantastic!

This year, Maile wanted to be a Magenta Crayon and Lauren wanted to be Hello Kitty. And that is exactly what we got 🙂

Meet Magenta Crayon Maile and Hello Kitty Lauren

Look at that Kitty face 🙂

With Halloween on a Monday this year, we had a few different opportunities to head out for candy – we did some warm up runs on Saturday and Sunday before joining our normal Halloween crew, Jake, Sophie and Willa for some serious candy action on Monday night!

On Sunday morning, my Uncle Lloyd passed away. He was 99(!) years old. The oldest member of my family on my mother’s side – and quite proud of it. He was an amazing story teller and sharp as a wit right up until the end.

We actually had a chance to see him this summer at our family reunion – he didn’t stay the whole time, but just enough for us to say hello and for him to enjoy seeing all the young ones frolicking around and having fun – I know it brought him great joy.

Uncle Lloyd with the youngest generation - most 90+ years younger(!) (August 2016)

I actually don’t know how much Uncle Lloyd read this blog – but I think he would have very much enjoyed what I’ve been doing here. My relationship with him actually picked up a bit in my late 20’s – in some small part due to writing a different blog. When I was in business school, I traveled to Thailand for a semester and wrote a blog about my travels. Uncle Lloyd got wind of it and started following along. He got a thorough kick out my entries and would often send me emails commenting on my various adventures, asking me all types of funny questions, and more often then not relating whatever I was up to some story from his own adventures.

To say he lived a full life is an understatement. His funeral was today and I’m told it was full of love and joy and many, many stories. I have no doubt that made him smile. He will be missed, but we’ll carry on the adventures on his behalf. I look forward to Maile and Lauren stumbling on this post one day and asking me about Uncle Lloyd!

On Sunday, Maile had her first performance as a member of the Young Women’s Choral Project of San Francisco. She’s been in the choir for about a month and a half and really enjoying herself. She practices twice a week (Wednesdays and Sundays) for a couple hours. She practices her songs and has been also enjoying learning how music works.

The performance was a really quick one – just one song – but Maile was very excited. She loved that she got to wear her “casual” uniform (for the big shows they were a more formal dress). And she and the rest of the choir did a really nice job. They didn’t allow videos, so you’ll need to just enjoy the pictures below of our proud little singer (and her hype girl, of course)…

At the parent teacher conferences last week, Christine and I went and chatted with Maile’s English teacher (since its an immersion school, English has a separate teacher that they meet with for ~a period a day kind of like how you might have had foreign language class growing up). Maile has been working hard on a story about her GG Kiyoko passing away – we’ve heard bits and pieces, but finally got to read the whole thing (see below). It reminded me a little bit of a project I did in preschool when my Grandma Judy passed away – I made a “family tree”-type drawing with my teacher.

Last week we had our fall school conferences for the girls. It’s always fun hearing about how the girls are getting along in school. The girls are at different stages of their educational journey so its interesting to see how the conferences change as the girls get older. For Lauren, her primary teacher is wonderful and talking to her its clear how well she knows our little girl. Lauren really seems to be adjusting well socially and the Mandarin learning is really starting to pick up steam – I have a feeling Lauren will go even faster than Maile did on account of having the support of her big sister.

For Maile, this year in second grade there was something new – mainly that Maile actually joined us for the conference and led part of the walk through providing us an overview of what she’s been learning to start the year. It was actually pretty funny because she started explaining everything in Mandarin until her teacher’s stopped her and asked, “Do your Mommy and Daddy know Mandarin?” “Oh yeah!”, Maile said and then switched to explaining in English for us. Thanks for tossing us a bone!

Maile and Mommy at Maile's parent teacher conference...

... and with Daddy too. Maile did an awesome job walking us through everything she is up to - it's going to be a great year!

(Dad note: Sorry, sorry, sorry for the slowness on the posts lately – been very busy at work and I suppose life in general!)

Grandma Gail and Papa Cal came out this past weekend for a visit and to watch the girls while school was closed the past couple of days. We had a wonderful visit (despite the Red Sox losing and ruining Papa cal and I’s enjoyment of playoff baseball!) It was a great weekend in the city – sun was shining, the Blue Angels were flying overhead for Fleet Week and the girls really enjoyed spending some quality time with their grandparents. We even managed to get a picture of the girls and their grandparents!

Maile (7) and Lauren (3.5) with Grandma Gail and Papa Cal

Thank you for visiting – look forward to seeing you again soon … this time on your turf in Hawaii!

Today is our 9th anniversary(!) – we’ll be celebrating a bit this weekend. Tonight we showed the girls our wedding video for the first time (I just recently got it digitized) and after the girls went to bed, Christine and I had a glass of champagne and looked over old posts of the girls on the blog.

Yesterday, I posted about Lauren and the wings she made at school. I was looking at some old posts tonight and discovered one from 2013 – turns out it wasn’t the first time Lauren has tried on a pair of wings 🙂

Lauren has been taking an after school class called Tree Frog Treks where they learn all about different types of animals. She even got to touch a snake last week (“no big deal” she said!) Lauren was quite proud of the wings she got to try on for side, but a little disappointed they didn’t actually help her fly…